Clifford Winspear "Cliff" White

I don't know much about my great-grandfather. Granddad Jerry didn't tell any stories about him that I remember. All I know about Granddad Cliff is that he left his family when Granddad Jerry was a teenager and that he cleaned up his act later and married a nice woman named Ursula. They lived in Florida. I met both of them on a family trip to Florida when I was younger (maybe somewhere between 8 and 10?). All I remember from the time my family spent with them was going to a seaside restaurant and being super excited that I saw a real live pelican fly over the water. I didn't realize then how awesome it was to be able to say that I'd met, talked to and remembered more than one of my great grandparents. So now I only remember one of my great grandparents because I wasn't paying attention then.

Granddad Cliff was named after his father, Clifford Levi White, and his mother, Minnie May Winspear.

Here are some vitals on Granddad Cliff:

Birth: July 4, 1907
Marriages/Children:

1. July 27, 1929 to Josephine Agnes "Jo" Grupenhoff. Cliff had just turned 22. He left when he was about 36 years old.
   Children: Gerald Lee and Roger Thomas
2. About 1958 to Betty. Cliff was about 50.
3. September 1985 to Ursula. Cliff was 78.

Death: May 2, 1997. Cliff was two months away from his 90th birthday.

Census records of Cliff White:

1910 Census:

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From this census, you can see that Cliff Sr. and Minnie were a little bit older when Cliff Jr. was born. Other interesting information is that while Cliff Sr.'s parents were both from Ohio, Minnie's mother came from England and her father came from New York, a city full of immigrants at the time. You also see that Cliff Sr. worked as a "livery man" at a livery stable. If I understand the census taker's shorthand correctly, Cliff Sr. was the employer at the livery stable.

Also of note is that the family rented a house that was not on a farm.

1920 Census:

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In this census, we see that Cliff Sr. is working on his "own account" (OA on the far right) as a manager at a garage. This may be a natural transition from the livery stable as the country was transitioning from horses to automobiles as their main mode of transportation. It's also interesting to see that Minnie was working outside the home, even though two-income families were much less common during this time period. The family now owns their house, but has a mortgage on it.

1930 Census (not even a whole year after he and Jo married):

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Since both Cliff Jr and Jo are in this census, I wrote an analysis of this record on the "General Information" page for Granny Jo. I will also copy the information I put on her information page for the 1940 census. Here's the text:

As you can see, the 1930 census was taken soon after Jo and Cliff's marriage. They were renting their place for $35.00/month. One thing that you don't see here is that their neighbors (the rest of the census page) were mostly all renters and small families, as well. Several of the other small families are also newlyweds. Cliff worked as a book keeper and I think Jo was working as a sales lady at a department store. I'm not sure, though, because the image is really hard to read.

Interestingly, one of the questions asked by the census taker was if they had a radio set. This modern couple sure did!
1940 Census:

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In the 1940 census, you see that Jo is no longer working outside the home, but is a home maker (that's what that long line of "no's" followed by an "H" means). They have two fine boys, aged 5 and 3 years old. Cliff is still working at the brokerage, but now is working as a margin clerk (whatever that is). I included the next family on the census, because I happened to know that that is the family that Cliff came from. How awesome is that?

One thing that I didn't see to make note of in the picture of the census is that Cliff and Jo were renting at $25/month and were living on a farm (this information is in the columns preceding their names). G-G-Granddad Cliff (Cliff, Sr.) was also living on a farm, but he owned his house. I'm guessing that this is White Acres. His house was valued the highest of all the owned houses on this census page.